


Skin Deep

by eugyne (AreteNike)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, M/M, Self-Harm, Soulmate AU, kind of, kind of a gruesome soulmate au sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-03
Updated: 2016-09-03
Packaged: 2018-08-12 19:39:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7946623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AreteNike/pseuds/eugyne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soulmate AU in which surface injuries on one person appear on the other, and vice-versa. So when Shiro's soulmate self-harms, he knows...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Skin Deep

**Author's Note:**

> i thought of this last night and wrote it all on my phone at breakfast this morning so... unbeta'd, barely proofread, kinda short. but theres gotta be more shance out there so (ง •̀_•́)ง

Takashi Shirogane figures out pretty early on that his soulmate is either a tree climber or a skateboarder, or possibly both. The scrapes that appear on his hands and knees, the bruises from falls he hasn't taken—whoever they are, they don't shy away from danger. When he's twelve and a bruise blossoms across his cheek he gets angry about it—don't they care they're hurting him?

"I'm sure whoever she is, she's sorry about it," his mother soothes. "Sometimes you can't help falling."

He doesn't mention he suspects his soulmate might not be female. "But she does it so often," he complains. "Can't she be more careful?"

"Takashi," she says, "you can't control what she does, but you can control yourself. What happens to you happens to her, too."

He struggles to wrap his head around her meaning. "You mean I should hurt her? I don't want to do that." Hadn't she always told him not to hurt others?

"No, no," she says. "Be gentle."

He understands, and he takes it to heart.

The injuries grow less frequent, smaller, as he gets older. He grows sensitive to the pain of others. He does what he can to help, whether it's a physical pain or an emotional one. He trains as an EMT. He goes to med school. He goes to war.

Not to fight, but to heal.

He's abroad when it starts. A thin line across his wrist, not by his own doing. He's concerned for a moment, but it's only one, shallow, so he chalks it up to an accident and bandages it up and continues with his day.

A few days later another line appears.

They're not frequent, but the cuts keep appearing, sometimes on his wrists and sometimes elsewhere. Sometimes there are bite marks on his hands—at least those don't leave scars. He covers them as best he can and worries constantly about it—but there's nothing he can do and there are soldiers in front of him that need his help. For themselves, and for the people that care about them.

His convoy runs over an IED and he loses an arm and goes home. He wonders if his soulmate felt it, how it showed on their skin. What they thought about it.

There aren't any new marks for a while as he heals, and he wonders if his soulmate is holding back or if they're concentrating on the arm he lost. He gets a prosthetic and nightmares but he knows there are things you can do about pain. He goes to therapy and gets a job.

The marks start coming back. He reads an article about soulmates finding each other through the scars left by a new tattoo and looks down at the lines on his wrist and wonders if, actually, there's something he _can_ do.

He walks into a tattoo parlor on a Saturday afternoon and asks for three words in white ink, between the scars on his remaining arm.

The marks stop. Winter comes. He trudges through the city streets, keeping his head down against the wind, heading to the subway. He passes the convenience store, the restaurant, the bookstore; the streets are crowded but at least it's not baseball season.

Ahead of him a young man slips on a patch of muddy slush. He manages not to fall but the bags he's carrying go flying, and Shiro rushes forward to help pick them up.

"Are you alright?" he asks quickly, and the man mutters a "yeah" as they both scramble to gather his belongings. Shiro straightens and hands over the bags and meets the man's eyes.

He looks exhausted. Haggard, even, and cold; his coat is thin and definitely not suitable for the weather.

"Are you alright?" Shiro asks again, more carefully. The man looks at him, then deflates under the unexpected weight of a stranger's concern.

"Maybe not," he says around a sob. Shiro's eyes widen.

"Okay, here, let's go inside," he says quickly, and ushers the man into the bookstore and sits him down in an unoccupied corner of the busy cafe there.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to impose, I don't want to be a burden," the man is saying, but Shiro shakes his head.

"I don't mind. I'm not in a hurry. What's wrong?"

"Everything?" He lets out an embarrassed chuckle. "Probably not the sort of thing I should be telling a stranger about."

Shiro lifts his hands placatingly. "You'll never have to see me again," he says. "It might help to talk about it."

"That's the thing," the man says slowly, and Shiro leans in encouragingly. "I have been. I've been going to a shrink and everything, I'm starting antidepressants soon—but it's still _hard_."

Shiro nods, waits.

"It's just like... Okay, I used to hurt myself," the man admits. "On purpose. I figured my soulmate was probably pissed off about it but I couldn't... bring myself to care, anymore." He pauses.

"As someone on the other side of that situation," Shiro says carefully, "I think they were worried about you. Not angry."

"They were... That's why I stopped, why I started getting therapy." The man stretches his left arm forward and rolls up his sleeve, and suddenly Shiro can't breathe for what he sees there. "It was a few months ago now—they got a tattoo between the scars I... gave them... 'you'll be okay'. So I realized they cared, and I... I had to do something. Sorry." The man is choking back sobs again, and the pieces click together in Shiro's mind.

"Hey," he says softly, and takes off his left glove and reaches over to take the other man's hand. He waits until he has his full attention, then flips his wrist and drags his own sleeve back.

Shiro's soulmate stares for a moment, eyes flicking up and down from their arms to Shiro's face. His hand tightens around Shiro's fingers.

"Oh my God," he breathes.

"For the record," Shiro says, smiling gently though his heart is pounding wildly, "I was never angry." Except once when he was twelve—but that was a long time ago.

"It's... it's you. I... Oh my God." His soulmate reaches with his other hand to trace the scars on Shiro's arm. The tattoo isn't much more visible on Shiro's arm than his own. "It's... did you get it in white ink? It's so faint, but..."

"I didn't get it for me. I got it for you."

That sets him off again, and Shiro tightens his grip on his fingers. He hadn't expected this but now that he's found his soulmate... he's not going to let him go. Not now that he can do more than worry and carve words of encouragement into his skin.

"What's your name?" he asks. "I'm Shiro." A nickname he picked up abroad, but one that feels too natural now to drop.

"Lance," his soulmate says, muffled. He's hiding his face in his arm now, shaking, and Shiro squeezes his hand.

"Lance," he says, and relishes the way it feels in his mouth. "Breathe... in... out..."

Slowly, he calms again, and Shiro grows aware once more of the bustle and glances of the cafe around him. He doesn't once let go of Lance's hand.

"Thank you," Lance says eventually, and Shiro thinks it's not just for the conversation they've had. "And... it's nice to meet you."

Shiro smiles. "It's nice to meet you, too." He nods over to the counter. "Do you want coffee? My treat."

Lance hesitates. "Hot chocolate," he decides eventually. "With whipped cream."

"Sure." Shiro gives his hand one last squeeze before standing and removing his other glove from his prosthetic—he sees Lance's eyes widen, his hand twitch up to his right arm, and he wonders again what's there—and heads up to the counter. For now, he's going to buy his soulmate hot chocolate, and sit with him in a warm cafe while cars and people struggle through the slush outside, and he's going to hold his hand for as long as he can get away with, and talk.

He thinks they're going to have a lot to talk about.

 

**Author's Note:**

> lances right arm only has a large scar around his elbow area (besides the self harm ones anyway) but i couldnt fit that in. /shrug emoji
> 
> also i dont think tattoos ALWAYS leave scars? but mine sure did so i know they CAN and this whole fic is kind of predicated on that so.
> 
> anyway im @maternalcube on tumblr, talk shance 2 me


End file.
